Because they’re on Kindle, you can use the Kindle App to store these handbooks either on your Kindle or Kindle App on your iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Phone or other appropriate tablet, PC or laptop and have them readily accessible whenever you need one. You can use them when you’re in the office, at home, on the road, or in meetings.

This allows you to have them accessible each time you need to design a meeting, delegate a task, coach an employee, determine what you need to do to provide effective leadership in a given situation, or decide how best to manage your time.

For information on these Kindle versions either click the applicable link below, or visit your applicable Amazon website and input “Meetings That Work”, “Delegating For Results”, “Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors”, “Time Management for Managers and Supervisors”, “Project management for Managers and Supervisors”, or “The Leadership Framework” in the search criteria.

KAW Consulting’s ” Manager’s Toolkit” is a collection of electronic handbooks that guide Supervisors and Managers step by step on how to develop and use the skills needed to deal effectively with 6 common challenges they face on a day-to-day basis. The titles in the toolkit correspond to these 6 challenges and include:

Written in a clear, easy to understand format, these handbooks provide guidance on how to apply the basic skills needed to be successful in each of the critical areas. They can serve as a basic guide when learning new skills, and as an important reference.

EXAMPLES OF HOW TO USE DAY-TO-DAY

To demonstrate why these handbooks can be such a useful tool, following are some examples of how a Manager or Supervisor can use them on a day-to-day basis.

Case 1: Improving Meeting Effectiveness

Tom Edwards, one of your Managers, wants to improve the meetings he holds. As a Manager, he holds a lot of meetings—whether they’re with other group Managers, special project teams, or his staff. Because time is precious, he wants these meetings to be as effective as possible. To make sure he’s planned each meeting effectively, he pulls up “Meetings That Work” and follows the 8 steps for designing an effective meeting. This helps ensure that he’s identified the meeting’s desired results, formulated an appropriate meeting purpose and agenda, invited the right participants, identified what people need to bring to the meeting or have done in advance, identified the right discussion process to use during the meeting (problem solving, brainstorming, decision making, etc.), and identified what might go wrong and he needs to avoid.

Tom uses this process for all the meetings he runs. He can run through it quickly for smaller meetings, and use it as a detailed planning guide for longer ones. By referring to “Meetings That Work” he’s found that his meetings are much more productive.

Case 2: Delegating Work

Sue Smith is one of your Supervisors. Like many Supervisors, Sue has a very heavy workload. Consequently, she needs to be able to delegate appropriate tasks to members of her staff. As with many challenges faced by Supervisors, saying that you need to delegate more is far easier than actually doing it. Fortunately for Sue, she has “Delegating for Results” . This allows her to quickly refer to guidance on how to identify:

Tasks that are good candidates to delegate.

Who she can delegate the task to.

The appropriate level of delegation that she’s comfortable with.

What the person needs to be able to do the task successfully.

Plan and hold an effective delegation meeting with the person she’s delegating to.

Plan the right level of follow-up to make sure the task is being done the way she expects.

Because she’s found the process so effective, Sue refers to it every time she delegates a task to make sure she’s included the steps needed to delegate effectively. Having “Delegating for Results” readily accessible makes it easy to do so.

Case 3: Coaching an Employee

Ed Jones, one of your Managers, needs to coach one of his employees. He knows the importance of coaching, and the challenges. To make sure he does it effectively, he pulls up “Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors”. There he gets easy to understand guidance on how to:

Establish the groundwork so he can have an effective coaching relationship with the employee he’s coaching.

Analyze the employee’s current level of performance against expected levels, and identify areas needing improvement.

Identify and develop concrete examples of what he expects in terms of performance.

Identify any training the employee needs.

Plan and hold an effective coaching discussion to provide the employee with feedback on how they’re doing, and develop plans for making needed improvements.

Because it’s so handy, Ed can refer to “Coaching Skills for Managers and Supervisors” each time he needs to coach an employee, and get the guidance he needs to be effective.

Case 4: Managing a Project

Ellen Thompson, one of your Supervisors, is being asked to take the lead on several special projects. She needs to be able to effectively use basic project management skills, but doesn’t need to become an expert in detailed project management or project software. The key is to make sure that the team she’s leading follows the basics. Fortunately, Ellen has “Project Management for Managers and Supervisors” easily accessible. She pulls it up and refers to its guidance on how to:

Monitor the project’s status, and what to do if she finds she’s off course.

Ellen finds that she refers to the handbook often, both to help her plan her next steps, as well as to make sure her plans include all the basic ingredients for a successful project.

Case 5: Managing Their Own Time

John Watkins, one of you Managers, wants to better manage his time. Like most Managers, John finds that he is constantly stretched thin, often feeling like his time manages him more than he manages it. Because time is scarce, he wants to learn the basics of time management and start putting them to practice as soon as he can. To help him start managing his time better, John pulls up “Time Management for Managers and Supervisors.” There he finds easy to understand guidance on the basics of time management from a Supervisor’s and Manager’s perspective, including advice on how to:

Analyze his job and identify what he should focus his time on to achieve what’s expected and his own personal goals.

Develop an ideal picture of how to allocate his time between his various activities.

Analyze how he’s currently spending his time and identify the gaps from his ideal picture.

Develop weekly and daily schedules so he can focus his time on the activities needed to achieve his goals.

Deal with time management challenges such as unexpected interruptions, non critical phone calls, high volumes of e-mail, and unproductive meetings.

After going through the steps, John found that he could gain at least 3 to 4 hours per week to devote to activities that he really wanted to spend time on.

Case 6: Providing Effective Leadership

Each of the people above have one thing in common. They need to lead effectively. And this is no easy task. While they have all read Leadership books or been to Leadership classes, they find it very difficult to translate the theory they’ve been exposed to, to what actions they need to take to lead effectively. What they really need is a tool that helps them determine what to do given the situation they face. And that’s where the “Leadership Framework” helps.

To lead effectively, it’s important that each understands what make leadership efforts succeed and why they fail. That way they can focus their attention on doing the things necessary to make them succeed, and keep from overlooking some of the common reasons for failure.

Establishing and maintaining credibility with the people you’re trying to lead.

Getting commitment.

Setting the example.

Empowering others to do what needs to be done.

Confronting and overcoming barriers and obstacles.

Managing accomplishment of day-to-day efforts.

The “Leadership Framework” is a tool designed to provide guidance on what to do to be effective in each of these 8 key areas. It provides sample actions, key questions, and measurement benchmarks (such as “can explain how we are going to meet our goal, etc.) for each area. Consequently, whenever faced with a situation that requires them to lead effectively, (from helping their Groups deal with major changes, to leading special projects, or just making sure they provide effective day-to day leadership of ongoing operations) each of the Managers and Supervisors above pulls up “The Leadership Framework” and uses it as a guide on what they need to do.

Why These Handbooks Work

As you can see from these examples, the handbooks in the “Manager’s Toolkit” are designed so Supervisors and Managers can refer to them over and over again, and get the amount of guidance they need to be effective. They provide the amount of guidance that most of us need to make sure we’ve covered all the bases when we confront these challenges, but don’t overwhelm us with excessive detail.

While each handbook is designed to stand alone, they can also work together. Ellen, who’s running a project, wants to learn the basics of project management, but also needs to be able to design effective meetings. John who is working on time management, finds he can gain more time if he can delegate more to his staff. Sue, who is actively delegating, needs to be able to coach her employees on the tasks she’s delegated. All need to lead effectively.

To put these books to work for you, simply click on the links provided at the top of this post, or visit Amazon and input the desired title in the provided search box.